1 Situating Kant's Pre-Critical Monadology: Leibnizian Ubeity
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1 Situating Kant’s Pre-Critical Monadology: Leibnizian Ubeity, Monadic Activity, and Idealist Unity Edward Slowik Abstract: This essay examines the relationship between monads and space in Kant’s early pre-critical work, with special attention devoted to the question of ubeity, a Scholastic doctrine that Leibniz describes as “ways of being somewhere”. By focusing attention on this concept, evidence will be put forward that supports the claim, held by various scholars, that the monad-space relationship in Kant is closer to Leibniz’ original conception than the hypotheses typically offered by the later Leibniz-Wolff school. In addition, Kant’s monadology, in conjunction with God’s role, also helps to shed light on further aspects of his system that are broadly Leibnizian, such as monadic activity and the unity of space. One of the most important developments in Leibniz scholarship over roughly the past quarter century has been the widespread repudiation of the purely idealist or immaterialist interpretation of his late metaphysics (i.e., where only minds/souls and mental content exist, à la Berkeley) for a “realist” reading that accepts the existence of an external world of some sort (see, e.g., Garber 2009). An interestingly upshot of the realist interpretation of Leibniz is the close proximity it places his monadological metaphysics vis-à-vis Kant’s own pre-critical period monadology, a point that has been specifically raised by various commentators with respect to the non-spatiality of monads (e.g., Rutherford 2004, 231- 233). Yet, while Kant’s pre-critical monadology does indeed have many features in common with Leibniz’ approach, especially concerning the hypothesis that monads are not in space, several key components in Leibniz’ and Kant’s respective systems have been neglected in prior investigations of their similar monadic schemes: namely, (i) the concept of ubeity, a scholastic distinction that Leibniz discusses in the New Essays as a means of characterizing the different ways that a being can be related to space; (ii) the crucial role that monadic activity or operation assumes in their respective systems; as 2 well as (iii), God’s function as the grounds or foundation of the monads and the material world. As will be revealed in this essay, a focus on issues (i), (ii), and (iii) sheds new light on the textual evidence, and supports new arguments, concerning the close connection between Leibniz and Kant’s respective monadologies, especially as regards the non-spatiality of monads. In what follows, accordingly, section 1 will examine (i), (ii), and (iii) in Leibniz’ monadology, whereas section 2 will be devoted to these same issues as they appear in Kant’s pre-critical period output. In the concluding section, a brief defense of the similarities of the separate Leibnizian and Kantian monadic systems will be offered. 1. Leibniz, Ubeity, and Monadic Activity. In his late monadic metaphysics, Leibniz contends that monads are non-extended, partless entities that form bodies, which are also described as composites or aggregates of monads (“bodies are only aggregates”, G VII 344; AG 319).1 Nevertheless, besides possessing a merely ideal unity (e.g., G II 256), bodies are claimed to “result” from monads, a process that would seem to exclude the straightforward sense of aggregation or composition associated with, say, atomism: “properly speaking, matter is not composed of constitutive unities [monads], but results from them” (G II 268; AG 179). The fact that 1 The following abbreviations will be used for frequently cited works: L = Leibniz 1969; AG = Leibniz 1989; A = Leibniz 1923 (referenced with series, volume, and page number); LC = Leibniz and Clarke 2000 (referenced with Leibniz’ letter number and section); LDB = Leibniz 2007; G = Leibniz 1965 (referenced with volume and page number); GM = Leibniz 1962 (referenced with volume and page number); NE = Leibniz 1996 (referenced with book, chapter, section); CSMK = Descartes 1991; N = Newton 2004; TP = Kant 1992, cited with volume, followed by a colon, and page number, from the standard Academy edition of Kant’s works (same for other Kant work); NS = Kant 2012. 3 extended matter results from monads, but is not composed of monads, would seem to be a consequence of his belief that monads are not spatial: “monads in themselves do not even have situation with respect to each other—at least one that is real, which extends beyond the order of phenomena” (May 26, 1712; LDB 241-243). At greater length, he explains that any assignment of spatiality2 to monads (nearness, distance, or that they are in points) is misguided: [T]here is no absolute or spatial nearness or distance between monads. To say that they are crowded together in a point or disseminated in space is to employ certain fictions of our mind when we willingly seek to imagine things that can only be understood. (to Des Bosses, 16 June, 1712; LDB 255; also, G III 623) However, Leibniz also maintains that monads retain a sort of “derived position” within matter: “although monads are not extended, they nevertheless have a certain ordered relation of coexistence with others, namely, through the machine which they control” (G II 253; L 531).3 Leibniz’ puzzling claim that his non-spatial monads have A derived position in matter has prompted various interpretations. One possibility is to simply deny that aggregates 2 Henceforth, “spatiality”, as used with reference to monads (or God), concerns the relationship between a monad’s (God’s) being/substance and space; thus, the non- spatiality of monads means that their being or substance is not situated in space, although their actions/operations may be in space (and the same for God). As used with respect to bodies, spatiality refers to their extension in length, breadth, and width; hence, to declare that bodies are non-spatial means that bodies are not really extended (in the external world), but only appear extended. 3 While the topic of our investigation concerns the question of the spatial situation of Leibniz’ monads in his later metaphysics, roughly from the late 1690s onward, it is worth noting that Leibniz’ earlier work seems to support the same non-spatial status for souls/minds as one finds in the later output. In a tract from 1668-1670, he writes (in Cartesian vein) that “[w]hatever is not a body is not in space; for to be in space is the definition of a body” (L 113; G IV 110). The same outlook is likewise in evidence in the middle years, 1680s and 1690s: in A New System of the Nature and the Communication of Substances, from 1695 (G IV 477-487), Leibniz claims that “[m]inds thus have special laws that place them beyond the revolutions of matter” (L 455). 4 (bodies) are spatial, rather, aggregate spatiality is a further contribution of the mind. Hartz argues that this interpretational strategy does not lead to a Berkeleyan-style idealism since an aggregate “is real, active, and has force” (Hartz 2007, 133). A somewhat similar tactic that also denies the real extension of bodies can be found in Rutherford (1990), who argues that it does not follow from the mind-dependent status of aggregates “that aggregates are nothing real; on the contrary, Leibniz maintains that in terms of their reality aggregates are to be identified with the plurality of things from which they result [monads]” (1990, 20). In other words, the fact that monads are constitutive of matter and bodies is inconsistent with idealism: if bodies are merely mental content, then why demand that “an aggregate is nothing other than all those things taken at the same time from which it results” (G II 256)? Consequently, the line of interpretation advanced by Hartz, Rutherford, and others, is to focus on the mind-based aspects of Leibniz’ theory, with the emphasis placed on linking the non-spatiality of monads and bodies with the monad’s own intentional, mind-dependent states. But, there is another interpretative approach that, while continuing to emphasize the non-spatiality of monads, need not deny the spatiality of Leibnizian bodies. A discussion in the New Essays on the various ways that a being can be related to place or space provides the basis for this line of interpretation, as will become evident below: The Scholastics have three sorts of ubeity, or ways of being somewhere. The first is called circumscriptive. It is attributed to bodies in space which are in it point for point, so that measuring them depends on being able to specify points in the located thing corresponding to points in space. The second is the definitive. In this case, one can “define”—i.e. determine—that the located thing lies within a given space without being able to specify exact points or places which it occupies exclusively. That is how some people have thought that the soul is in the body, because they have not thought it possible to specify an exact point such that the soul or something pertaining to it is there and at no other point. Many competent people still take that view. What should be said about angels is, I believe, about the same as what is said about souls. 5 The great Thomas Aquinas believed that an angel can be in a place only through its operations [upon what is there], which on my theory are not immediate and are just a matter of the pre-established harmony. The third kind of ubeity is repletive. God is said to have it, because he fills the entire universe in a more perfect way than minds fill bodies, for he operates immediately on all created things, continually producing them, whereas finite minds cannot immediately influence or operate upon them.